


What We Could Have Been

by latenightfires



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Sad with a Happy Ending, are they together yet? I'm not sure either, but it's really friends to enemies to lovers or something like that, it will get very dark but they will make it through as it's planned so far, there will be more tags/relationships/characters added as I add chapters, this is a mix of things taken from the show and the book as I see fit, this will be very long if I can write my way all the way through
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-26 22:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latenightfires/pseuds/latenightfires
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale begin to wonder about the effects of breaking free from Heaven and Hell and averting the apocalypse.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	1. Out

They were out. Out of it all. They’d scared Heaven and Hell badly enough that they wouldn’t be messing with the pair again. 

Crowley rubbed his arms. It was late summer, but that wasn’t stopping the sharp, cold breezes from cutting right through his jacket. 

“Here, we can finally have that ice cream,” Aziraphale said. The angel hurried up to the ice cream cart, stopping the man from rolling it away. 

Crowley still felt cold, but the sunlight hitting their usual bench was warm. He wasn’t so sure about eating ice cream already a step away from shivering, but Aziraphale had pushed it at him so happily that he hadn’t been able to turn it down.

The ducks didn’t look cold, and they had the excuse of being in the water.

Crowley bit his ice cream. His teeth froze.

Maybe if he had feathers, too, he wouldn’t be cold.

Aziraphale leaned his head back over the top of the bench. A tall knot of grass had grown up behind the wood. It tickled the back of his head. 

Crowley dropped the remnants of the ice cream cone in the bin by the bench. Aziraphale sat up. 

“Why did you get rid of it? Do you want a different flavor?”

“Mm?”

Aziraphale was already halfway to standing. “I’ll get you a different flavor.”

“No, no, I’m just a little cold, angel.” Crowley pulled Aziraphale back down to the bench. 

The angel crossed his arms. “I’m sure we can find you some tea somewhere.”

“No, really,” Crowley said. He stretched his arms out, but at the last moment pulled his arm away from where it would have settled around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “I think I’ll just sit here and photosynthesize.”

Aziraphale glanced over at Crowley in concern. “Photosynthesizing is for plants, dear.”

“Ah, but we can be whatever we want to be now, right? No more temptations and no more miracles, not if we don’t want them.”

“No more old bookshops…” Aziraphale murmured. 

“What about bookshops?”

“Last time we sat here and you said ‘no more.’ You said ‘no more old bookshops.’”

“Oh, well, thank somebody that I was wrong. Though I don’t think Adam got your place quite right, did he?”

“No, but I like it.” He did. The world was changing, and he could change a shelf of books right along with it.

“See.” The sun had warmed Crowley. He nearly felt he could sit there next to Aziraphale all day.

A duck splashed into the pond, flapping its wings before settling in amongst the water plants and other ducks. It had had a very long flight, and it hoped it had arrived before all the bread was gone. 

Crowley let his gaze flit over the other people around the park. An elderly couple were sitting on a bench across the water. One was reading to the other. 

A kid wobbled along the wall of the pond, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. A parent followed behind, worried over the state of dryness of their child.

Then Crowley found his gaze unable to move. He tried to bring his attention back to his ice cream, but some part of his brain wanted him to take notice of the woman his gaze was stuck on. 

She was directly across the pond from him, and looked just like any other Londoner, standing in the shade of a tree. Her dark hair was held back by a running headband, and her deep brown skin was shining from sweat even under the shadow. She’d obviously just finished a workout of some sort.

She was staring him directly in the eye.

Or maybe he’d made that up. She glanced away immediately, then she shook her head and walked away from the pond, and vanished from Crowley’s line of sight entirely.

“Did you see that?” he asked Aziraphale, not turning his eyes from where the woman had been. 

“What?”

“Uh…” Crowley glanced away from the spot. “No. Nothing, nevermind.”

“Let’s go back to the bookshop.” Aziraphale stood before Crowley could pull him back to sitting. “I want to check again to see what that boy did.”

“How many times have you checked already?”

“I’m not sure. Once more won’t hurt.”

“You know, nothing’s going to change from the last time.” Crowley stood. The pair began to walk.

“Have you got your car with you?”

“What, in my pocket?”

Aziraphale frowned at him.

“Yeah, it’s parked around the corner.” The breeze caught him again. Crowley shivered. “Let’s go.”


	2. Nighttime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW// minor robbery and assault

Crowley couldn’t sleep. He usually could, which was why it was strange. He rolled over. 

Did ducks have trouble sleeping? Being a duck was sounding nicer and nicer. Ducks probably didn’t have big enough brains to worry about things.

Maybe he was, in fact, a confused duck. Crowley thought that might be as good a definition for himself as demon, at this point.

At the time, the column of flame had felt quite refreshing, and, if Crowley was telling the truth, he had felt more comfortable than he had for a long time on Earth. That had scared him. Then he’d stepped out and almost fainted. When he’d gotten back down to Earth he’d checked his hands.

Demons love hellfire. It’s healing, it’s calming. It’s the inferno damned beings need to start their week on the right foot, so some posters had said on the walls of Hell’s hallways. Crowley had blisters all over from it. He’d breathed fire at Gabriel and his throat was burnt and raw. 

It could have been because he was wearing Aziraphale’s body. That might have been it. Except if that was all, then why hadn’t the wounds gone away when he switched back to his usual form? He could perform miracles, he couldn’t be properly injured for long, usually. The only truly long-lasting impact that could be made on a demon was through holy water. Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned a thing about being hurt by the holy water, and he’d have figured out what was happening long before Crowley.

No. Something was wrong. Something he wasn’t going to bother the angel about quite yet.

He could really go for some ice cream now. The air in his apartment was dry and hot, grating down his throat. 

Maybe his throat had just been dry for the past few days. If his gums weren't burnt black, he’d believe that. 

Crowley rolled over again and ended up on the floor. He lay there for a moment. “What’re you looking at?” he mumbled, flipping off one of his house plants. 

He gave up on sleeping. 

It was four in the morning. Crowley could hear his clock ticking. He snapped his fingers and the noise stopped. 

Crowley wandered into what should have been his kitchen if he ever really used it. He had a top-of-the-line refrigerator, and oven, and whatever else those useless little contraptions were, like the garlic press, and Aziraphale had given him a basil plant. He kept it on the counter, for company.

He jumped onto the counter and squatted, staring out his window. It was still dark out, but dawn would be edging into the sky in about an hour. The city wasn’t sparkling, but it was slightly glittery. He was in a modern district, and every shiny window reflected the streetlights below. 

A shadowy figure was walking below, and paused across the road from Crowley’s window. They were standing just outside the circle of lamplight. Crowley casually watched them from his window.

Then another person came along with a suitcase, presumably on their way to an early train ride. They didn’t see the other person standing beyond the light, and almost walked right past them but the first shadowy figure grabbed them by the elbow.

Crowley had sat down on the counter, but he rocked forward to crouch on the balls of his feet, tuning into the action outside. 

The first person was threatening the second. Crowley saw the second person push the suitcase towards the other, and wondered why they were giving up their things so easily when he finally caught sight of something that generally convinces people to give their things up.

The first figure wasn’t holding the second by the shoulder. They were holding a knife to their throat. 

This was getting interesting. Crowley didn’t particularly want to see bloodshed so early in the morning, but it was that odd hour when everything was disconnected from reality. Looking through the window felt the same as if he’d been watching the mugging on the television.

Then another person rounded the corner. Crowley watched them approach the situation, expecting a heroic rescuer, but the new one had their own ideas. They jumped behind the traveler and kicked them in the back of the knees.

Something started to feel personal to Crowley. Two on one wasn’t a fair fight anymore. He was a demon, he wasn’t supposed to care about the fairness in things–

But he wasn’t a demon anymore, not as far as he could feel. He was probably still closest to that out of any sort of being he might be, but Hell had disowned him. He could care about the fight below. 

He popped open his kitchen window. “Back off!” he yelled down to the trio. 

The attackers checked around quickly for the voice, then carried on kicking the person they were robbing. Crowley clenched his teeth. Two on one wasn’t fair. 

The muggers suddenly found themselves high in a tree. It was more the type of tree that caught their attention than the way that physics doesn’t normally let a person get thrown through the world like that. The pair glanced at each other in terror from the top of the palm tree, and promptly fell to the desert ground.

Crowley wasn’t so cruel. At least it was an oasis.

Back in London, Crowley shut his window before the remaining person could process what had happened. Across the road, they got up, grabbed their suitcase, and made their train–marvelously enough, they hadn’t even gotten hurt.

***

The first thing Aziraphale had done after getting back to his bookshop was cover up the crosses in the baseboards.

They were out of it all, at long last. Aziraphale just wanted his space to be his, not Heaven’s anymore. Not anything but his own. Whatever that was.

Not quite angelic. 

The moment Aziraphale had lain back in that bathtub of holy water, he’d known that something was horribly off. An aching numbness had spread from his fingertips up through his body, and nothing he could think of properly explained it. 

So he didn’t think, and just went with the feeling telling him to snatch his bookshop away from Heaven.

It was a shame. The baseboards had been beautiful.

He hadn’t brought it up to Crowley. He hadn’t mentioned the numbness in the first place; he hadn’t mentioned that it was still deep-set inside him, hiding in his bones. 

Aziraphale blew on his tea to warm it up.

The books Adam Young had added to his shop were new. The pages bent in curves and they didn’t smell like mice and the nineteenth century. They didn’t flake into pieces in Aziraphale’s hands. And they were fascinatingly human. 

In the past, changes were something people would run from. Aziraphale had known many people to be trampled when change came. He’d hated them, at first, most of the time. The old changes. He could learn to bend with some new ones, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to ashthebiggay15 for being my proofreader for this chapter!


End file.
